Colorado is poised to become the first state in the nation to select black lawmakers to lead both legislative chambers after House Democrats on Thursday nominated Rep. Terrance Carroll as speaker of the House.

The entire chamber must approve Carroll’s nomination once the legislative session opens in January before he officially becomes the eighth African-American ever to lead a state House. Democrats hold a majority in the House.

Carroll, a Denver lawyer and fourth-term lawmaker, referenced his family’s struggle in rough neighborhoods in Washington, D.C., and credited the diligence of his mother — the daughter of a sharecropper — for his success. He promised his caucus energy and vigilance.

“You just don’t grow up where I grew up and make your way out of the neighborhood by kind of slacking off. You have to work kind of hard to get out of that place,” Carroll told his caucus. “I will bring that same commitment and tenacity to the role of speaker of the House.”

As the lawmakers from both parties met Thursday to choose their leaders for 2009, Carroll beat out Reps. Anne McGihon and Kathleen Curry in a three-way race for the House Democrat’s top seat after the surprise election defeat of Rep. Bernie Buescher, D-Grand Junction, who had been the likely pick to become speaker.

The 2008 assistant majority leader and chairman of the judiciary committee, Carroll would lead with Sen. Peter Groff, who last year became Colorado’s first black Senate president and won re-election to the post Thursday.

The two live just 10 blocks from each other in Denver, and Democrats appointed Carroll to Groff’s seat in 2002, when Groff moved to the Senate. They were among President-elect Barack Obama’s first Colorado supporters.

And Carroll, as a seminary student, befriended Groff’s wife, who also is a minister.

Aside from social ties, the two share similar views on health insurance and urban-education reform — areas that many hope will see progress this session. Carroll on Thursday also laid out constitutional reform, the budget crisis and transportation as top priorities going into the 2009 session.

African-Americans make up just 4 percent of Colorado’s total population.

It’s a testament to the state that it has elevated black leaders to two of the most high-profile positions in state government in the same year that Colorado voters at 8 points favored Obama by a wider margin than the national average, Groff said.

“It shows where Colorado is,” Groff said. “We don’t have a lot of the racial legacy that other parts of the country have.”

Carroll, 39, has traveled a winding road to Colorado’s golden dome.

In his hometown of Washington, Carroll attended public schools in a neighborhood known as the “Dodge City of Dodge City,” he said, referring to the district’s dubious nickname at the time.

Thanks to his mother, Corine Carroll, he went on to attend Morehouse College and eventually left D.C. to briefly pursue a Ph.D. in political science at the University of Colorado at Boulder. After a year, he chose to become a police officer.

Seminary was next, where Carroll became a minister ordained in the American Baptist Church. He still preaches occasionally at First Baptist Church near the Capitol. He later successfully pursued a law degree.

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